


Fingernails

by breath_e



Category: Night In The Woods (Video Game)
Genre: Bullying, Illustrations, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, i guess, mae has trouble with math
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 08:47:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11204520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/breath_e/pseuds/breath_e
Summary: "That's the girl who eat's chalk right?" / "Now, what do you do now that eight has been subtracted from one side?""Yeah, she's a vegetable or something." / "Take your time now, we have as many lunchtimes as you need.""I wonder if she's being held back." / "We are not going to let you get held back."Mae passed the class- she passed. She finally passed.People made fun at her for biting at her nails.





	Fingernails

_People made fun at her for biting at her nails._

 

The habit started in the fourth grade, just as a little subconscious habit to pass the time, but it grew into something she could lay back on, sink into like a bean-bag chair and watch as the little beans cover ther entire vision. She sat down in their small chair, smaller than the others (something she urged herself to neglect), and looked up at the basic, fourth grade multiplication arithmetic problems, pencil laying idle, thumb nail in her mouth, flakes being torn off.

She was often caused looking down at her hands- being placed next to the teacher's desk for "being disrespectful" and "not following the class." She still looked down at her hands with a glimmer of a grin under her wide eyes. 

Each week, after her fingernails had grown out, she held an immense pride in tearing them off, finding the satisfying sting of getting too close to the pink of her fingers relaxing in a way. Once a week, math class on Mondays, she stuck her nails in between her teeth and bit them off, not minding the slobber that dripped down her thumbnails or the events happening in class. Fifth grade, end of the year, basic algebraic equation balancing, the teacher looked over his shoulder and at her, calling out a phrase that made her sputter out her ring finger from under her teeth:

"Come to the front of the class and show us the solution, Mae" she trembled, her hair falling down into her face as her deep brown eyes widened considerably, taking in all of the gazes now pointed directly to her and the spit falling from her hand.

"No." she said in response, voice strong and monotonous, an attempt at some dignity. He adjusted his _stupid, bright blue sweater and blue tie_ as Mae watched, jaw slack from disbelief as the spit on her hand glimmered with the light coming from the window. 

"Hey Mae, sure you don't want ketchup with that?" A kid from the back of the class choked out, being followed by a chorus of laughs and jovial "shhhhs!"

"Now, now," The teacher's heavy eyes sharply poked at the kids at blame, then focusing on Mae, "Come to the board please" a dusty, white hand with a stick of chalk outstretched towards her. Mae's eyes drifted upward to his stern, tired challenge.

"I don't know how to do that." She stayed in her seat, hands frozen in midair, a strand of spit falling onto her desk as the class howled. Her ears brightened and poked up as she tightened her throat around her words as she spoke. 

"Show me how well you can, at least. If you can't, maybe one of your classmates can help you out," he was impatient towards her, but his words were still gentle and caring. His words spat out to calm down the buzz of snorts and whispers after his words. Mae begrudgingly dragged out of her chair, face down, rubbing her wet hand on her jeans, strands of choppy hair falling down to her face as her feet bumped against the cold, tile floors, nothing but the poignant scent of chalk to comfort her as she approached the problem on the board.  

"You know math isn't my strongest suit, demon." She murmured to him as she took the chalk from his hand, face to face with this issue. One glance at it and she tried to resist the urge to scream at the taunting kids behind her and the board and the damn _teacher_ for making her do this. In front of her was scraggly handwriting; 

She trembled in front of it, trying to remember the process her teacher taught the _other_ students while Mae sat, thinking of whatever came into her head (anything other than math). B _alance. Balance-balance-balance-ugh what a dumb word how am I supposed to make this equal anything if we don't even know all of the other letters mean._  She put the chalk carefully to board, examining every inch of the past equations deep within the smudges for something that might help her, listening to the shuffling of papers and whispers and taps behind her back instead of the voices. 

Finally, part of her sprung up. She felt every inch of her body electrified with nothing but resent for everything she had to do. She didn't want to be here, she didn't want any of the kids behind her to think they're better than her because they _aren't._ She pushed the chalk stick down into the board and gritted her teeth, feeling her bitten nails against her tongue and loathing that feeling, for once. It's what made her hand all slobbery and _everyone saw._ Her gaze fell over from the lines spawning from her hands to her hands, the subtle pink of sensitive skin next to the nail, the way it illuminated underneath the florescent lights. She clutched down on her fingers under they where white.

Mae skidded the chalk against the board, curving it over lines not fully erased and coordinate graphs. She pulled the lines downward and watched as the dust pooled onto her damp hand, sticking there as she marked the board, turning her white knuckles a ghostly hue. The teacher, now knowing what she was doing, called out to her, once, twice, trying to get an explanation as of why, but his words didn't go through to her. He raised his voice, once, twice, before shaking her out of her drawing trace with a final "that's _enough, Mae."_   He cleared his throat and flattened down the disheveled ruffles in his scratchy blue sweater.

Mae could feel her fingertips twitch as she turned to stare at him, his cheeks twitching his eyes into slits as the class struggled to see behind her body, people whispering and laughing as she glared at him, placing the chalk down on the tray and walking back to her desk, hands white with dust, ears red with embarrassment, fingers raw from biting. The teacher yelled to the class to calm down, swiftly walking back to his desk and pulling a red slip from a paperclip, clicking a pen and tracing his initials down on it. Mae found the punishment on her desk. 

" **ELEMENTARY LUNCH DETENTION CARD**                    DATE               _5/13_               

        _Mae Borowski_         WILL BE DETAINED FROM LUNCH ON                _5/14_                 AND SHOULD VISIT     _Mr. Leum_     'S ROOM AFTER RECEIVING SCHOOL LUNCH. 

  **MISDEMENOR**

 BEING PROMPT AND PREPARED [x]         FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS [x]          KEEP TO YOURSELF [x]           RESPECT OTHER PEOPLE AND PROPERTY [ ]        

  **EXPLANATION**

_Not doing as told in class, calling teacher a demon._

Teacher _Craig Leum_                       Parent   "

 

She sighed, waving her ghostly hand in the air, "Thanks Craig," her voice was weak, cracking like a dying flame as she spoke, turning her body towards the board to ignore all of the terrible feelings stirring as she glimpsed towards the words on the paper. Behind her, a symphony of laughs and whispers and shouts as the kids in her class finally absorbed all of the marks on the board. She couldn't help but want to take each piece of chalk into her hands and snap them against her drawings until nobody in the class could see them or the math problem underneath them. She drew that, oh god, why did she draw that. Not only did they see her with a hand full of slobber, but now? Oh god, why. 

The words on the board echoed throughout the class, people mimicking or praising her verse on the chalkboard, and she couldn't stand it. In the moment, they sounded clever and volatile and anarchist, but now they sounded stupid, impulsive- how could she even have thought of that? Her thumb instinctively pulled into her mouth, but the sickly, dry chalk dust stuck to her tongue and she grimaced.

_"Look at her hands!"_

_"What does that even mean?"_

_"She's not even cool enough to be a bad kid, she's just dumb."_

_"We've been over this problem like a thousand times, why doesn't she get it?"_

_"One of these days Mr. L is gonna snap and hit her."_

"Look at her, she's eating her hands!" 

"I bet she likes to taste chalk, right? What a moron." 

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her sketch and turned to the teacher. His fingers clutched around the felt eraser, pushing all of the dust off of the board and onto the tray, with it the words that still fluttered around the room, from each corner, each mimic seemingly louder in her ears. The slip of paper was red, the board burgundy, Mr. Leum's sweater blue, and the raw nails on her fingers white. 

 

The next day, during her detention, underneath all of the smudged chalk, she could see a glimpse of her mistake and still hear all of the mocking voices bounce back into her ears with each simple explanation her teacher repeated. Repeated, repeated, repeated.  
  
Mae wasn't listening.  
  
She found another slip on her desk, and another, and another. Repeated, repeated, repeated. Each day she looked to the board and the tray and then down to her nails, wanting nothing more to rake what she bit off down the chalkboard to erase any memory of the ridicule.

_"That's the girl who eat's chalk right?" / "Now, what do you do now that eight has been subtracted from one side?"_

_"Yeah, she's a vegetable or something." / "Take your time now, we have as many lunchtimes as you need."_

_"I wonder if she's being held back." / "We are not going to let you get held back."_

Mae passed the class- she passed. She finally passed. 

 

Eighth grade year, she sat hunched down on her desk, chewing on her thumb nail, raw from hours weekly of biting and piking while her pencil scratched away at her page, idle, ignorant to the drone of her algebra teacher in the front of the room. Behind her, a boy taps on her shoulder and whispers, "Can I see your drawing?" Mae, started, bites down on her thumb and curses under her breath, shooting daggers through her eyes as the boy behind her, "Fine, Jesus, didn't realize you still eat your hands or whatever." 

Mae can only see white on her hands and the same words on the chalkboard, underneath the forgotten, confusing math problem. She brushes the strands of hair out of her eyes and wipes the blood on her hands on the boy's cheek and says to him, clear as day in the classroom, voice strong and monotonous, an attempt at some dignity, and says "I'm pretty good with my teeth and hands, want to feel them against your throat?" 

Another red slip on the desk. 

In the back of her mind, she sees an old chalkboard and a man in a bright blue vest standing before what she thought was a good idea. 

**_"NO MATH IN SPACE."_ **

Her fingers are raw, red, and bleeding by sophomore year.

**Author's Note:**

> this is just a thought i had to get out of my head. might add more chapters abt what happens in sophomore year if i feel like it or if people like this a lot. idk. kudos and comment if you dig it 
> 
> also ignore typos its uhhhhhh 1 am


End file.
